


Valor

by meha



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Kink Meme, Light BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meha/pseuds/meha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The last two Grey Wardens in Ferelden helping one another out of their armor was such a routine sight that not even that not even Zevran made off-color remarks about them undressing one another: the sun rose in the east, the stars rose at dusk, and Solona bustled around Alistair whenever they struck camp.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valor

**Author's Note:**

> my first dragon age fic attempt. kink meme prompt: "so, i'm sure tons of us love to put alistair in the templar armour from the circle tower, right? i'd like to see a f!amell who either finds herself scared/unsettled by the sight and is eventually comforted by alistair; or a f!amell who is shamefully, confusingly aroused. somehow meshing both is also fine."
> 
> i went with "unsettled." tassets are butt armor, for the record. cuisses are thigh armor. i used the default amell name.

"You've never had any problem with looting corpses before," Sten said. "Your breastplate is damaged. The dead are only bodies. Take it." 

"This is different," Alistair said, eyeing the dead templar at his feet -- and the dead desire demon, crumpled in the corner. "He was -- "

"You are a Grey Warden. This body was not your brother-in-arms," said Sten. 

"For Andraste's sake, Alistair, put it on," Wynne snapped. She laid her hands on Solona to fix the wound from a crossbow bolt that had gone clear through her shoulder: at point-blank range, no less. "Look at her. You can't protect your fellow Warden if you can't protect yourself." Solona winced as the hole closed and the shattered end of her collarbone knit itself back together. 

"Will it scar, Senior Enchanter? Will it scar dreadfully?" Solona asked, deliberately piteous, casting doe-eyes at Alistair. He'd been with her since the start; she wouldn't have him fall in battle because he wouldn't take perfectly good armor.

"Yes, my child," Wynne said. She patted Solona's cheek. "I'm afraid it will."

" _Fine_ ," Alistair said. 

Solona thought nothing of it, at the time.

-

The last two Grey Wardens in Ferelden helping one another out of their armor was such a routine sight that not even that not even Zevran made off-color remarks about them undressing one another: the sun rose in the east, the stars rose at dusk, and Solona bustled around Alistair whenever they struck camp. It had reached the status of a ritual, between them. She'd started as an excuse to touch him -- she'd been hungrier for _everything_ since her joining -- but tonight, she couldn't look at the Sword of Mercy on his chest as she removed his helm. She kept her eyes downcast when she removed his gauntlets. 

"My dear," Alistair said, sotto voce. It's not as though he wanted the whole camp to hear, she supposed. Vambrances, next, then the massive, impractical pauldrons. She'd polished a great deal of templar armor in her time, and she knew precisely where all the buckles were for his breastplate.

It had been two months since the tower. Two weeks since she'd taken Alistair to her tent. "Your hands are shaking," he said.

"Nonsense," she said, "they're perfectly steady. Turn around." 

"You're very -- what's the word. Efficient. At this." Alistair remained facing resolutely forward. "Not that you're any more or less efficient than average. Just a normal night at camp, what with your refusing to speak to me or meet my eyes. Business as usual." Then he presented his back to her, and she could breathe again. Templar skirts were fastened in the back, and meant to come undone with a touch, once the tassets came off. 

"If there's something bothering you, you should tell me," Alistair said, softly, bending over to help her pull him out of his hauberk. The thin shirt he wore beneath the chainmail was damp with sweat. "Was it the farmhouse we passed? Is it Lothering? Are you dreaming of the Archdemon again?" 

"I've never stopped dreaming of the Archdemon," Solona said. 

"It gets better." He waved her away and sat down to remove his cuisses and greaves himself, then took her hand and pressed her palm to his cheek. He was warm, he was alive, and he had never been a real Templar. "I promise you, it will." 

"And better a Warden than still in the Circle," she said, "considering." 

"You wouldn't have fallen to Uldred," he said, gazing up at her with such cheery certainty that she had to believe him. "Not you. You would have held the line with Wynne, I'm sure of it. And _then_ the dashing Grey Warden and his dashing companions would have charged in to save the day, and he would have fallen in love with you and your valor at first sight." 

"My valor. Is that what we're calling it?" Even as she said the words, she knew the flirtation sounded hollow. In the distance, Wynne was peeling back the hastily tied bandages around Leliana's forehead, Sten and the hound patrolled the perimeter of the clearing, and Zevran dogged Morrigan's every step. No one was paying attention to her and Alistair. She could be weak, in this moment, and no one would care. 

"It's not about any of that," she said, finally, lifting her arms so Alistair could peel her out of her own armor. "It's...."

"I won't think you any less valorous for whatever it is."

She could deflect: _I doubt your mind ever strays far from my valor._ She could drag him off behind some bushes and work the unsettled feeling in her stomach out; she could lie and say it was nothing, then challenge someone to a fight. Sten would do nicely: he was strong, slow, refused to pull his punches, and recognized that he needed practice fighting mages. 

But none of that would fix anything. "My upbringing in the Circle of Magi was comfortable," she said. "I had a roof over my head. I had enough to eat, once I could bring myself to eat it. I was bright, and I had teachers. And I had templars watching my every move, waiting for me to show an inclination toward blood magic. Or demonic possession. Or a wavering in my devotion to the light of our Maker. I was _bright_ , you see, and gifted, and a gifted mage is a dangerous mage."

"And here I am, traipsing around in the guise of your childhood nightmares?" 

"Essentially."

"You should have said something," Alistair said. He gave her braid a solemn tug. "Maker knows we come across enough abandoned suits of armor."

"We don't have time to talk unless we're at camp, and our mouths have been otherwise occupied of late." 

"Fair point." Alistair pressed the back of his hand to his cheek. "Very fair point. I'm -- I'm going to go find us all dinner. There was a stream somewhere."

-

"I see he fishes with the same enthusiasm with which he makes love," Zevran whispered in Solona's ear over blackened trout and hard biscuits. "I hope he has not spent all of his vigor, yes? I for one would not know what to do with myself if I was not soothed to sleep by the sounds of your lovemaking."

"Maker forbid," Solona said, "we couldn't have that. You're useless in a fight when you don't have your beauty rest."

Later, in the dim of the tent, Alistair said, "What were you and Zevran muttering about over the fire?" She heard a whisper of fabric that meant he'd shrugged his shirt off. She leaned forward and found his body, and ran her nails lightly down his back, on either side of his spine, to watch him shiver. 

"He compared your unprecedented catch to your sexual performance," she said. "Or what he imagines it must be like. It was incredibly flattering."

Alistair yanked Solona's tunic up over her head in an easy motion -- a far cry from their early fumbles -- and ran his finger beneath the strips of cloth that bound her breasts flat to her chest. "One supposes you're very virile," she went on. "I have little basis for comparison, but I suppose years of Chantry living -- "

"You sound like him," Alistair said. 

Solona patted his cheek. "Virile and handsome. And sweet. And kind." 

"Are you all right?" he asked. "After what we spoke about earlier."

"I'm fine," she said. It came out brittle-sounding, rather than confident. "You needn't worry about my childish fears. Kiss me."

She pulled him down so that his weight was comfortably atop her, so that the smell and strength of him were the whole of her world for a moment. She could forget the darkspawn for just a moment, in the dark here with him, though their boots were still on in case they were woken from their beds and had to fight, and the ground was hard beneath her back. Alistair brushed his nose against hers. "That's not a kiss," she said. 

"Well, that wasn't an answer. We're even. And look, I've got you trapped," he said, easing her thighs apart to settle between them. 

"That's the difference between you and the templar you nearly were," she said. Not moving her gaze from his, she took him by the chin, forcing him to keep silent. "I can make you stop." 

"Maker's breath, you're not saying -- "

"It's not how you imagine." She kissed him, slowly and sweetly, and he responded to her by degrees. His hands were balled into fists on either side of her head, but she allowed it: because it was Alistair, and he would more than allow her to do whatever she liked. "I came to the Circle when I was five years old," she said, "after I blew out the windows on the first floor of my aunt's estate during a temper tantrum. 

"I didn't understand 'curfew.' There was a templar on patrol on the second floor, and he caught me by the back of the neck while I was sneaking -- and he picked me up, and held me in the air while he questioned me. Like I was a bundle of wheat. But he was wearing gauntlets, you see, and in the morning I had the most frightening necklace of bruises."

"And he wasn't reprimanded," Alistair said.

"I was birched," Solona said. "Thoroughly. Neither the First Enchanter nor the Knight-Commander could be convinced that a five-year-old mage-child was sneaking out of the apprentice quarters at night for nefarious purposes, of course, but I never forgot the lesson: a Templar can do whatever he wants to you. And mages bruise easily, they say."

Without a word, Alistair rolled off of her and onto his back. She sat up and looked down at him, at his rumpled hair and his boots dirtying their shared bedroll, and she slid a hand under his head to squeeze the back of his neck. He closed his eyes in anticipation. They were both breathing hard, she realized, the sound made louder in the enclosed space by the silence of the camp outside. "It does make one feel powerful," she said. 

"You can freeze an entire battlefield in its tracks, my love," he said. "I'm not sure you need to feel any more powerful." 

"Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him," she said. She let go of his neck and straddled his hips. Of course he was already hard and straining. She had not been unaffected by his being atop her, despite their unarousing conversation; it would have been the simplest thing in the world to ease his trousers down and simply have him. He would not have said no. But he stared up at her, and his gaze was distant and wary, so she stayed her hand. "I'm fine, Alistair," Solona said. He took her hands and pressed her knuckles gently to his lips, first one, then the other. "It's fine." 

When he said nothing, she shifted, just a fraction of an inch, and his hands flew to her hips to hold her in place. "You're welcome to rule over me," he said, the start of a laugh in his voice.

"Remove your hands, then," she said. He withdrew them immediately. He was built to follow orders. It _did_ make one feel powerful. She took his wrists and pinned them above his head. "Looking at your armor these past few weeks -- I dreamed of something other than the Archdemon. But I love you more than I've ever hated any templar, Alistair."

"I'll leave it by the side of the road," he said, "I'll have it smelted down. I'll throw it into the fires of Orzammar. Anything." 

"You're being silly," Solona said, twining his fingers in hers. The desperately earnest look in his eyes made her chest ache. If she lost him, it would undo her. "It's a perfectly serviceable suit of armor. As much as I'd enjoy the view, I won't have you going to battle in the nude." She leaned down so that her breasts were pressed against his chest, until she was nearly lying flat over his body, and kissed the spot where his jaw met his neck, then down to the hollow of his throat, and she delighted in his impatient squirm. "In the Circle, I never dared to dream of this. I couldn't have imagined anyone like you."

"Please," said Alistair.

Nakedness was a luxury they couldn't afford on the road. In a scramble of hands, he pulled down his trousers and she pulled down her thick woolen leggings, just enough so that his thick cock could rest against her belly. She took it in one hand, and at his sharp intake of breath she was perversely -- lewdly -- glad they didn't have to use any manner of prophylaxis, that she could touch him without anything between them. 

"I couldn't have imagined anything like _this_ ," she murmured. She braced herself on his chest and rubbed the damp heat of her against his cock, and watched his eyes fall shut and his mouth drop open. "Tell me what you want."

"Fine Orlesian cheeses," he said, when she leaned back and he recovered his voice. "A new horse. Might we go out shopping for dancing shoes next time we're in Amaranthine, dearest?" She tried her damnedest to remain stern and indifferent when he trailed the tips of his fingers over her breasts, down her front, to tease at the pearl between her legs. "However, I will settle for a thorough ravishing at the hands of the beautiful renegade Grey Warden."

There he went -- pulling her back when she became too serious. She was being handled, and the knowledge that someone loved her enough to see when she was prepared to go too far into her own head, and loved her enough to play with her, was enough to make her forget her teasing and seat herself on him fully and in one smooth motion. And then she did not move at all, enjoying the fullness. She could go one hundred years and not get sick of watching him struggle not to simply _take_ , to pound into her, until she said so. 

"What an excellent start to a ravishment," Alistair said -- Solona could not help herself, she let out a great cracking laugh that could have woken Morrigan from across the camp -- "please, continue." 

"Hush. You've been overwhelmed by my superior strength of arms." She squeezed his shoulders and pushed him down, and he went. 

Only then, once his hands were resting at his sides, did she begin to ride him in earnest, her fingers biting crescent moons into his skin. He didn't close his eyes, now. "You may hold my waist," she said, and his hands flew to touch her. He held her like a breakable thing as she moved over him. She pressed a hand to his stomach and felt his struggle to not move his hips in rhythm with her -- not until she said, never, ever until she said. 

Solona nodded. 

\-- and then she was no longer a breakable thing, when he squeezed her arse and slammed his hips into hers, just once. She gasped, then covered her mouth with both hands when he took control, holding her in place as he thrust. "Sweet Andraste, you're perfect," he groaned, and she leaned forward so that he could shower her breasts and chest with kisses.

She was within inches of surrendering to it, but she felt the tension in his thighs that signaled that he was going to try and turn them over. "No," she said, her hand shooting out to squeeze the front of his throat, her thumb pressed over the pounding pulse in his neck. 

"My lady," Alistair said. His rueful grin would be her undoing. Still, Solona sent a little jolt of electricity between their bodies, and he only smiled more brightly. 

She brought her body down to meet his movements, and they turned into wild things, her nails scoring hot red lines down from his collarbones to his navel. He stiffened and thickened inside her, and she leaned down and whispered into his ear, "Not until I do." 

He grunted and reached his hand between their bodies to stroke her, ungently; he did her the service of pressing the other over her mouth, to stifle her moans, before she could even think of the noises she was making. The tight feeling built, and built, like a storm cloud, until her release came over her. His eyes went wide at the feeling of her muscles squeezing around his cock, like a man who was bearing witness to a miracle. Like _she_ was his miracle.

She collapsed over him, pressing her damp cheek into his damp shoulder as he raced toward his own completion. She was decidedly not a breakable thing now, she was limp and pliant, and she let Alistair move her as he pleased, hazy from the aftershocks of her orgasm. She tightened her inner muscles around one last time to milk for everything in him, and it was such a crude thought and crude act that she would have reddened from embarrassment.

And there was his come trickling down her inner thigh when she rolled off of him. And finger-shaped bruises on her hips. And a burn mark on his chest where she'd shocked him. This last gave her pause: she rubbed the palm of her hand absently over it, wishing she knew any of the healing arts to fix what she'd done. 

"You ought to be basking in my incredible valor," Alistair said, rubbing the curve of her back. "That's not basking." 

"I burned you," said Solona. "I lost control."

"You were very much in control. Of yourself, I mean. Besides, it's a badge of honor. I'll show it off in taverns: 'Look, I survived making love to the Warden-Commander of Ferelden!' And I'll never have to pay for a drink again."

"Warden-Commander," she said. She sat bolt upright and pulled the blanket up to her chest. " _Warden-Commander?"_

"I rather thought it went without saying," Alistair said. "As ranking Grey Warden in Ferelden, I stand behind the appointment. And above it. And beneath it. And, you know, that thing where we're both on our sides -- " She stabbed a finger into his burn. 

Outside the tent, someone kicked the fire out. In the darkness she pulled up her leggings and snuggled into their bedroll. "Much more than I could have dreamed of in the Circle," Solona said. "I just wanted to become First Enchanter. Travel to Orlais, spend a few minutes in the Divine's presence, read a few rare books. Make nice with templars for the rest of my life."

"I was serious about throwing the armor into the lava, you know," he said, "or you could light it on fire. It might be fun. That's one thing you couldn't do in the Circle, have fun -- or slaughter your way through darkspawn hordes, or take shady jobs from mercenary companies."

"Rescue a Chantry sister. Visit a brothel. Take a lovely trip through the Fade. Have tawdry relations in a tent with a man I've known for all of four months."

"Has it been so little time? Are you _positive_ I haven't known you forever?"

"Look, you're getting romantic," Solona said, tossing the blanket over his head. "We should sleep." 

The someone who'd extinguished the fire lobbed a shower of pebbles at the side of their tent. "We're being told to sleep," Alistair said. He threw his arm across her chest. "If you have a nightmare -- well, I'm sure you'll freeze it from the neck down and watch it scream. But I'm here, as well."

"You'll do," she said. "You'll do."


End file.
